


an acquired taste

by blue-finger-stripes (mr_dr_felicia)



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Batfamily (DCU), Brotherly Love, Comic Book Science, Damian Wayne Whump, Gen, Half-Vampires, Vampire Batfamily (DCU), Vampires, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-08 18:01:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27060862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mr_dr_felicia/pseuds/blue-finger-stripes
Summary: Damian fed more than any of his family members, including his Father. And he couldn't help but notice it.For Batman Bingo 2020: Batfam are not human
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Damian Wayne
Comments: 8
Kudos: 126





	an acquired taste

**Author's Note:**

> For anyone still following "I know that I'm going low", yes I will still write it, but finals are coming up so I'll probably be back to writing mid November when they're over. Anywaaaay have a one shot! And vampires for spooky season!
> 
> Also also i wrote the first third of this like a month ago so idk if it fits the tone of the rest.

Damian had been in his Father's household for the better part of three years now. 

He knew every shadowed corner and creaky floorboard, knew which rooms had the best light in the day and which windows had the best view of Gotham's dusky purple sunsets. He'd made himself familiar with each painting in the Manor as well, from the portraits of named and unnamed ancestors, to the tiny still life's a young Wayne heiress painted in the late 19th century. His own bedroom had a framed watercolor of jasmine flowers, the delicate brush strokes crisp against creamy paper. Other than the painting, Todd had installed some racks on an opposite wall Damian used to display his old League armor and weapons on. Which had been good, since his closet had rapidly been overcome with new clothes, mostly from Pennyworth (the butler sent their clothes out to be laundered every three days, why would Damian need more than five changes of clothes?) and some stolen from his brothers. 

In the Batcave the situation was not far off. He had a corner of the training room all to himself right between Richard's balancing beams and the tennis ball launcher Thomas used to train his metapowers. Damian was used to having an entire courtyard to himself for training, this corner was barely an eighth of that, but it was his, and the small space let him practice how to properly execute techniques in cramped spaces. 

Non-lethal techniques of course, Father made sure of that. The new fighting style had tempered ten years' worth of League training, a heavy curtain pulled over the blood and gore and death of Damian's past. 

For all intents and purposes, Damian had found a new home with Father and his gaggle of half-bloods and turned children. 

Looking at him, no one would have guessed that he had a separate fridge in the Cave for his blood supply. Everyone else, including Father, shared a similarly-sized one next to his. 

Damian knew he was exceptional, a purebred born from the blood of two prolific vampire families. In the league he had fed on prey as an infant until he was old enough to walk independently, after which he was left to hunt for his own food. Damian's bloodlust was famous in the League, his assigned targets dead within the same night they would be assigned to him, skin white and drained completely of blood. Now he fed on donated blood from unknowing humans and synthetic food.

His targets had usually been rich moguls fat on wine and gold and their blood tasted as much. In Gotham, the blood of faceless muggers and murders tasted of smoke and hunger. Donated blood tasted like a hospital visit. Blood replacement was simply drinkable energy and was tasteless. 

But Damian was nothing if not determined, and when he said he would live under his Father and his Father's No Kill rule, he meant it. So he drank his donated blood, downed his iron tablets, and when that wasn't enough, he drank blood replacement. 

But still Damian fed more than anyone else. And he couldn't help but notice it. 

Richard only ever fed on human blood when he was injured, surviving happily on blood replacement and tablets. He took them once daily, like a multivitamin. Damian had heard Todd used to only take tablets when he was Robin, but as Red Hood Father had weaned him back onto donated blood after his dip in the Pit. He also turned a blind eye to Todd's monthly binges, the man feeding on live prey but leaving them alive, if barely. Drake barely fed at all, tablets thrice daily enough to keep him standing. Before big missions he downed donated blood like he was half-starved, which Damian assumed he probably was. Cass didn't feed on anything but blood replacement. Even before longterm undercover missions, and  _ especially _ when she was injured. 

Damian fed on donated blood and tablets thrice daily. If he planned on missing a feed he doubled that and bolstered it with an additional two doses of blood replacement. He could last a week at most without collapsing. Any other member of the family, including  _ Father _ , a fellow pureblood, could last much longer. Damian didn't bother hiding the fact that it annoyed him. 

Father, who religiously fed twice daily on blood replacements, always said that it was because Damian was young. Barely ten when he'd first transitioned to this diet, his body had been used to fresh blood for the past years of his life. Damiam allowed himself to listen. 

But three years along and not much had changed. 

The diet was not new anymore, nothing was  _ new  _ about this lifestyle Damian had chosen when he decided that he would rather be his Father's son than his Grandfather's successor. No, something was wrong with Damian. And it was getting worse. 

It began as a ringing in the back of his head. Nothing serious, just a noise that grated on his nerves just before he fed. The sound disappeared the moment Damian fed, returning at a barely noticeable degree usually a day after. It would mount so gradually Damian could barely feel it, the sound gaining precedence in his mind with each passing hour. 

What used to be a day before it came back turned into a night, then into four hours, two hours, one hour. It gained intensity as well, the minutes before Damian fed becoming a blur as his mind pulsed with the noise. The only way Damian found to manage it was spacing out his feeds, drinking smaller portions throughout the day instead of downing them altogether. 

And drinking more synthetic blood than he imagined was possible. 

Blood was carefully measured out for each of them, shipments for it coming on the dot with a small amount going to the freezer in the Cave's medbay in case of any serious injuries. Damian couldn't increase his feed without Father noticing. 

It turned out the synthetic stuff he so hated would eventually be the only thing that kept him standing most days. Synthesized blood was created right inside the Cave, and the machine was rarely manned in the early hours of dawn when even Alfred was still in bed. 

It kept him satiated enough to keep his head in the mornings, and gave him enough energy to stay on his feet during patrol. 

But the hunger still stayed, like an annoying song that stuck to the inside of Damian's skull. Even now as he stood glaring at his brother, he could feel it at the back of his mind, little flames licking up his spine.

He needed another dose before he keeled over. 

Tonight Father had forbidden him from going on Patrol without any reason.  Instead Father had dragged Drake from his self-imposed break, the teen still sporting a busted lip from his last mission with his team. 

And as usual, he left Richard to babysit him. 

"Hi, Dames."

His brother looked at him dubiously, one hand behind his back as he held himself in a handstand. 

Damian, like a complete fool, hadn't noticed that he was in the Cave. He'd come down to sythesize a few pints he could spirit away to hide behind the wardrobe in his room and was already halfway out the door when he realised. He barely managed to hide the blood bags before the eldest Wayne son dropped from whatever surface he'd been napping on (it was a habit he'd picked up as Robin that Father never rid him of), blinking away sleep. 

His face was lax and eyelids droopy, but Damian could see the flash of curiousity in the bright blue of his eyes. An eyebrow rose. "It's pretty late."

There was a question in that greeting.  _ What are you doing here?  _

"I wish to train before bed." Damian lied. It was the easiest excuse he could come up with. 

Richard's eyebrow rose higher. 

He was in a mood tonight. He usually would've let Damian be, or would already be dragging him back upstairs for a midnight snack and a movie. Instead he stood perched on a ledge  _ in a handstand  _ and looked down at him expectantly. 

Usually Damian would have been game, his own stubbornness enough to ground him in any argument, keep him rooted to the ground and to his opinion. But Damian knew the longer he stood doing nothing, the more probable it was that he would keel over. 

He hissed, severing their eye contact as he started pacing. This much at least let him imagine that the incessant ringing was simply his footsteps against the pillowy training mats. "Father said I was not allowed to patrol tonight- he did not bar me from training." 

Richard dropped back to the ground without as much as a rustle. "I know that, Little D. I'm just not sure if that's the best thing for you now."

"The best thing for me would be patroling. As Robin should." 

"Sick Robins don't go on patrol."

Damian felt the back of his throat tighten up. Unless it was a curse, vamires didn't get sick. And they still went on patrol regardless. No, he knew what this was about. "Father does not trust me."

"You know that's not what I meant."

_ It's what Father meant _ . Damian thought. 

"Anyway," Richard said. "I won't let you hurt yourself training, so I'll spar with you tonight. That okay?" 

Damian huffed. "Fine. Let me get my gear."

He turned, keeping his gait painfully casual as he headed to the lockers, thankful that the pullover he wore was thick enough to hide the blood bags. A quick glance assured him that Richard had gone back to warming up below. Quick as lightning, he ripped into a bag and gulped down the contents quickly, biting back a sigh when his migrane finally subsided. The rest was stuffed beneath the uniform in his locker. 

It would be enough to keep him standing for one training session. 

When he got back down the older vampire let him stretch for a few minutes, then went into a basic fighting stance. 

Out of all his siblings, Damian sparred with Richard the most. He was most familiar with how he fought, and was the fastest after Damian. The youngest Wayne knew their more intense sparring sessions would often devolve into jabs and kicks so fast their limbs blurred in the Cave's security feeds. 

Tonight he fought slower than usual, assessing Damian's movements and defending rather than launching any real attacks. He left himself wide open at some points, too busy counting Damian's breaths and the dilation of his eyes. 

The younger boy hissed. "Stop that!" 

Faster than before, Damian sent a solid kick to the older man's gut. He never held back during training. 

Richard stumbled back a step, frowning. "Bruce is worried about you."

There had been lapses. Damian could admit that. 

Times when he'd stumbled where he wouldn't have three months ago. Moments where he hissed and snapped at a petty thief's neck, a hair's breadth away from piercing the skin. Father had seen it all and merely grunted, the look in his eye enough to send Damian into a fit. So he'd finally told Richard. 

"His worry is unfounded. I am fine." 

As Damian spoke, Richard suddenly lunged forward, arms out to grab his middle. Damian jumped a second before they collided, bracing against the taller man's shoulders as he soared over his head. Before he could land though, a hand closed around his ankle and pulled him back. His world spun as he was pulled into a flip, back slamming onto the ground. The air in his lungs escaped in a dry huff. 

Richard bent down, hand outstretched to where Damian still lay flat on his back, defeated within minutes. "Not so unfounded."

Damian slapped his hand away, knee rising to knock against the man's chin. 

In a blink Richard was in the air, his rare gift of flight bringing him up in a swooping flip. It was a gift not all Gothamites knew he possessed, since the former acrobat himself melded it so seamlessly into the jumps and flips he used to get around town. And it seemed a difficult gift to control, as Pennyworth's many annecdotes of broken chandeliers could attest to. 

He landed facing away from Damian, the pureblood blinking away black spots in his vision and phasing out of sight milliseconds before the older man turned. 

Richard kicked out as he turned, which Damian dodged, rolling up to stand until he was barely an arm's length away. The man looked around at the seemingly empty room around him. 

Mother had made sure that whatever Wayne gene containing the gift of invisibilty would be in Damain's DNA. It had been a gift that Damian used often during missions for the League, helping him rise up the ranks faster than any other. Now he barely used it, the gift taking more energy that it was worth. Even Father rarely used it, and when he saw Damian had the same gift he taught him not to rely on it during fights. Being invisible didn't mean you couldn't get hurt. 

The air was still around them. 

Damian could feel the hold he had on the gift struggle with each moment that passed. He needed to end this fight. 

He looked at the horizontal bars behind Richard. Like a mirage he could see himself swinging down and landing a kick to the older man's back, knocking him down and ending the fight. Damian steeled himself for the jump, and knew in the same moment that he'd made a mistake. 

Richard zoned in on the breath he had let out, head snapping to his direction. Because of course Father trained them on fighting invisible targets. 

Damian's feet were barely a foot from the ground when Richard's shoulder rammed into him, his body phasing back into visibility. He faltered as he fell, vaulting into an awkward flip before he managed to solidly plant his feet into the training mat. Where he stood his legs felt rooted to the spot, his whole body pulsing with exhaustion. It took a herculean effort to pull his arms up to block his face.

Richard let out a bright laugh. "You're going easy on me, Lil' D. You never let yourself make a sound when you're - Damian?" 

His vision was too blurry. 

If he had been able to see, Damian could've watched as the expression on his brother's face dropped. But as it was, he barely registered his knees buckling beneath him, the ringing in his ears too loud, too loud.

He felt hands on his shoulders and what sense left in him pulled his fist back and punched. It connected with a solid crack against something that felt bony and fragile. 

Someone was saying something. 

He was probably saying something too, but his ears were filled with water. The fuzzy blackness in his vision was warm and better than anything Damian had felt in months. His limbs were loose and leaden, like he'd tired himself out after a particularly challenging night of patrol. There wasn't even any ringing in his ears! 

The last thing Damian felt was the rush of wind pulling through his hair. 

* * *

He woke up with a body heavier than his own. 

The ceiling of his bedroom loomed above him, taller than it ever seemed. The curtains were drawn but no light escaped. Night held his room and body in its cold grip. 

This had never happened to him before, but he'd seen it enough times to know what it was. He was sick. Cursed. 

That was the only explanation. 

Vampires didn't get sick. Injuries merely required human blood to heal. 

This heaviness in his chest, this aching in the back of his throat, it was different. Was the building dread another symptom? Damian had not heard of it from his siblings; most of them simply annoyed at being benched as their body cycled the curse through their systems before being rid of it. Of course, there were special cases. Curses that needed magic to rid the acursed of their sickness, ones that affected the psyche rather than the physical body. 

No - Damian knew why he felt this way.

Richard had found out. Damian had been weak and Richard found out. 

He himself could not remember what he had done in those moments, all the time condensed into sensations he couldn't even string together into a coherent narrative. But of this Damian was certain: Richard knew. 

Sitting up reduced his sight to a muddled sploch of colours. 

Alfred had left a few bags of synthetic blood at his bedside. Damian ripped into one without preamble, downing it in two gulps. Immediately, his sight cleared. The darkness in his room cleared like a fog had been blown away. His things were as he left them. A cold sense of relief flooded his chest when he saw that his wardobe had not been moved.

He'd talk to his older brother. 

He hated doing so, and just the thought of admitting that he'd been stealing food for months now made his skin prickle. But it's what Father would have wanted him to do. And so Damian would do it. 

There was a creak above his head. 

Then another, another, in short succession. Footsteps. 

Damian tore through a second bag. The library was right above his bedroom. 

_ "- abnormalities. I haven't seen this before."  _ The sound of Duke Thomas' voice crackled at the end. A phone call, then. 

Concentrating his hearing, Damian could make out the soft puff of air that Richard let out as he sat down. Old leather spines cracked open and thin, brittle pages turned under his fingers. 

_ "You're telling me."  _ Richard's voice. Tired.  _ "He was so different in there, Duke. So small."  _

Damian supressed a full-body shudder. Richard had always said he was strong. Strong for being so young, strong for what he'd endured - what he was still enduring, as the Son of the Bat. 

Thomas must've said something, because the elder was talking again. Damian caught just enough to understand.  _ "-too weak. He wouldn't be able to handle it. _ " 

No. 

Damian could handle anything. This was just a silly growth spurt that needed dealing with. Not even a curse. Just a momentary blip in the clear path of Damian's succession. 

His vision was blurring again. 

_ Damn  _ this insipid body. Damian stood, opening and drinking each bag left on his nightstand. His vision cleared, but why was it that he did not feel any better? Each mouthful slid down his throat like tar, weighing down his limbs even further. 

Damian was mildly surprised when he felt the soft carpet on his knees. He vaguely registered that he was shaking. He needed blood.  _ Real _ blood, from some unsuspecting human that breathed and screamed. 

In the League, Damian had been starved for three days before being sent out on a mission. Grandfather found out then that Damian did his best kills on an empty stomach. So he'd done it again. And again. 

The spare uniform he kept under his bed was tight about the shoulders and had too-short sleeves. Damian slipped out the window and made it onto the roof without incident. There the wind howled, too loud for even his own thoughts to echo in his mind. 

The glider was an old thing, but it was the best thing he could find without going down to the Batcave. Gotham's evening winds bore him downtown without much trouble. He was gliding down towards an empty rooftop when the communicator imbedded in his mask lit up the lens over his left eye. "Damian! Where are you?" 

"Robin." Damian corrected. "I am out on patrol."

Richard's voice was frantic, static rumbling as he pressumably threw on his own uniform. "You're in a delicate state right now, Robin-- it's dangerous for you to be-" 

Dangerous. 

His own brother saw him as a danger. Towards the very humans he'd sworn to protect.

"I am not dangerous!" Getting the words out shook him. 

"I just need something more substantial. I will kill no one." He tugged the grappler from his belt. "I know very well that Robin does not kill." 

He shut off his communicator and made sure his tracker was turned off. 

Even as it felt like Damian's world had been titled on its side, Gotham was still an unchanging constant. Smog hid away the stars, cars screeched, and glass broke. In the cloak of night Damian swung from rooftop to rooftop, traversing the jungle of glass skyscrapers that was downtown Gotham until he reached the seedier parts of town. Old redbrick apartments stood nearly wall to wall, the alleys between them unlit and dead silent. The bigger ones housed burning fires where the homeless huddled together for warmth. A few blocks away stood an empty and disreputable shelter. This wasn't Crime Alley, Damian wasn't keen on bickering with Jason. 

No, Damian wanted to fight with someone else tonight. 

The East Hills Strangler was a case Damian had been working on for the past month. He used to target homeless vets, strangling them with a thin wire that left thin cuts all over their necks. When Damian caught wind of the case and how the GCPD had zero leads, Robin was at each scene gathering evidence. 

Evidently, the Strangler liked that, and a week later another body was found. This time it was a small orphan boy, black-haired and brown-skinned. Just like how the newest Robin was described. The boy was nameless, an immigrant that knew no English and no one had bothered to lead him to a shelter or report him to the police. Damian swore he would not allow another. 

He crouched on top of one of the apartment complexes and focused his hearing, ignoring the sharp headache that raged in the back of his mind. He sorted through twelve floors' worth of televisions and honed in on a certain sound. His hearing wasn't quite as extraordinary as to match Jonathan's, which could hear his inhumanly slow heartbeat just the same if the Superboy was in Metropolis or in Africa, but an apartment complex or a busy highway was doable. 

Witnesses had said the Strangler was not very tall and was actually quite slight in frame, face and body shrouded in a long coat or a baggy hoodie. He purposely chose either a sleeping target or ones that were weak, sickness making them lethargic and slow. 

And he often hummed classical music as he killed. 

Damian was on the third building when he heard it, the fifth floor's sounds of microwave ovens and running water nearly obscuring the soft notes of a violin concerto playing from a cell phone's speakers. The music grew as Damian drew closer, loud enough that it masked even the slide of the window opening to let the vigilante inside. 

Rancid gore assaulted Damian's senses the moment he opened the window. The room was simple and neat, a pair of sturdy tennis shoes in one corner that reeked of bleach and the blood that had once stained it. A violin sat on the coffee table, its surface impeccable. A box of replacement stings was next to it. 

" _ No _ ." 

If the smells weren't enough, the pure fear that shook in the man's voice would have been enough to damn him. He barely managed to take in a breath before Damian was on him, grabbing the front of his shirt and forcing the both of them out through the window. They landed with a splash and a crack of what was most likely the man's ankle. 

_ "What the fuck was that?"  _

_ "It's Robin!" _

_ "What's he doing with-"  _

"Please help me!" The pathetic man was actually crying now. "He's got the wrong guy!" 

"Call the GCPD and tell them Robin has found the Strangler." Damian called out to the small group of people that gaped at them. "Tell them to check his apartment and all the evidence they need will be there." 

The Strangler let out another cry when Damian slammed him into the wall, teeth biting into his tongue. 

"Don't hurt me! I'm giving myself up - just take me to prison!" 

Damian felt a smirk pull at the corner of hism outh. "Not just yet." 

He already reeked of blood and fear, his teeth stained red as the cut on his tongue bled. He screamed as Damian's grip on him shifted, a hand against one side of his throat. 

"Robin!" 

Damian ignored the voice. He couldn't even tell who was calling for him. It could've been his Father for all he cared, no one could stop him now. His head was pounding, eyes watering as he pushed to keep his hold on the man unwavering. He opened his mouth, hissing as his fangs grew longer in anticipation of the feed. 

The smell of fear was disgusting, Damian long ago growing to hate the smell after he'd moved in with his father. It was a smell he'd been all to accustomed to as an assasin for the League. It reminded him of the innocents he'd been ordered to kill. But he was  _ so hungry.  _

The voice called out again, the man screamed. 

Damian bit down. And tore through kevlar. 

A horrendous taste flooded his mouth as he took an involuntary gulp of Richard's blood, the younger vampire stumbling back. An arm caught him before he fell, everything spinning and so dim now. 

He heard the man groan as he was knocked unconscious, heard the click of handcuffs. Richard pulled him up into his arms and everything was weightless. A hand ran through his hair. "Dames?" 

"I- I'm sorry." Damian choked out. The taste of his brother's blood grounded him to that moment, to what he'd almost done. What he  _ would've  _ done, if Richard had not been there. Even now he could still smell where the older man bled, vampire's blood black and oozing through the material of his uniform. 

Some cowardly part of him was glad the hunger made everything blurry- at least he wouldn't need to see his brother's face as he spoke. And all he could do was speak, his body and mind too weak to do much of anything else. There was also some sort of fear that held on to Damian's mind like a vice, telling him that if he didn't talk now, he never would again. So he spoke, the words tumbling out of his mouth unbidden. "Was just hungry. I didn't want to kill him, I  _ swear- _ " 

"I know." Richard pulled him closer to himself. "I know, Dames."

They were flying so high over Gotham Damian could almost see the stars, the clouds thinner this high up. It was much colder too, cold enough to make Damian believe that the wetness on his cheeks was merely the chill against his face. 

"Nothing you ate seemed to be enough, right?" Richard said. 

Damian nodded against his shoulder. 

It seemed like hours passed before he spoke again. 

"You formed a sort of allergy against one of the thinning agents Bruce used in the synthetic blood. Your body was rejecting it.

"The more you drank, the more your body fought against it. Your immune system is so weak now that you would've gotten any blood-borne disease fresh blood carried."

" _ -too weak. He wouldn't be able to handle it."  _

Damian almost sighed in relief. "You meant my immunity. You didn't mean me."

Somehow, Richard must've connected the dots and realized what Damian meant. Or he was simply humoring him. "Of course. You were and always will be strong, Damian."

The next part Damian almost didn't catch, too hungry and tired to keep himself conscious. 

"Never be afraid to ask for help."

Somehow, he knew what Damian was thinking even as the younger vampire remained silent. "Even Bruce needs help. That's why he has us, and you have us too."

A chuckle escaped him unbidden. "You truly are a sap, Grayson."

Damian couldn't bring himself to believe it completely, but against all odds he knew in this moment that he was safe.

He knew he was going home. 

**Author's Note:**

> Was that a cliffhanger or an actual ending? 
> 
> Leave a kudos and a comment if u liked it anyway :>


End file.
